WASHINGTON — Nearly half of the 1.3 million homeowners who enrolled in the Obama administration’s flagship mortgage-relief program have fallen out.
The program is intended to help those at risk of foreclosure by lowering their monthly mortgage payments. Friday’s report from the Treasury Department suggests the $75 billion government effort is failing to slow the tide of foreclosures in the U.S., economists say.
More than 2.3 million homes have fallen into foreclosure since the recession began in December 2007, according to the foreclosure listing service RealtyTrac Inc.
“The government program as currently structured is petering out,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “It is taking in fewer homeowners, more are dropping out and fewer people are ending up in permanent modifications.”
Besides forcing people from their homes, foreclosures and distressed sales have pushed down home values and crippled the broader housing industry.
About 630,000 people who had tried to get their monthly mortgage payments lowered through the government program have been cut loose through July, according to the Treasury report. That’s about 48 percent of the those who had enrolled since March 2009.
And it is up from more than 40 percent through June.
Another 421,804, or roughly 32 percent of those who started the program, have received permanent loan modifications and are making their payments on time.
RealtyTrac reported that the number of U.S. homes lost to foreclosure surged in July to 92,858 properties, up 9 percent from June. The pace of repossessions has been increasing, and the nation is now on track to having more than 1 million homes lost to foreclosure by the end of the year. That would eclipse the more than 900,000 homes repossessed in 2009, the firm says.
Lenders have historically taken over about 100,000 homes a year, according to RealtyTrac.
Zandi said the government effort will likely end up helping only about 500,000 homeowners lower their monthly payments on a permanent basis.
